Former ODP Player Kalijah Terilli Representing the United States and University of Pennsylvania With Class

July 15, 2014-Life is good for Bronx resident Kalijah Terilli, who was selected All-Ivy League goalkeeper last fall and played with the United States at the U.S. Under-23 Training Camp at the Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista, California from June 7 to 14.

“My week in California was really eye-opening as I got to train and live with some of the best soccer players in my age group,” Kalijah stated. “The trip gave me a week-long glimpse of what it means to be a US soccer player. Wearing the USA crest at an Olympic training facility is one of the coolest things I've ever done!”

“The players were unbelievably technical, smart, and composed, and the coaches––Janet Rayfield, Steve Swanson, Leslie Gallimore and Amy Griffin––were amazing. I learned a lot from them in such a short time. Overall it was a really great experience, and now I know what I need to work on to get back there,” she added.

Last season, while just a sophomore at the University of Pennsylvania, Kalijah started 14 of 17 matches and recorded nine solo shutouts, helping the Quakers to a school record 12-1-4 season. Just as important, she was also Academic All-Ivy League in addition to her exploits on the soccer field. This summer, she has a work/study internship on Penn’s campus with the Kable Lab. She is trying to trace and understand the neural mechanisms of choice/decision-making.

She wound up at Penn through a twist of fate as she and her mother Carol were looking at colleges and visited her mother’s alma mater, Drexel. Penn was next door so they made it their next stop and she believed it provided the best combination of athletics and academics of all the colleges they visited. Not hurting is the fact that Penn women’s coach Darren Ambrose was a goalkeeper.

In the Eastern New York Youth Soccer Association (ENYYSA), Kalijah played in goal for seven years with the Manhattan Pride, who went undefeated in the Northeast Regional Premier League (NERP) in 2009 and 2010. Kalijah led the Pride to a rare double last summer as she shut out Quickstrike ‘94 Girls, 1-0, to win the Girls-Under-19 State Open Cup final on June 8, then helped the Pride claim the state’s Under-23 championship with a 5-1 win over the LaGrange Hawks on July 28. Prior to Manhattan, Kalijah played with another Eastern New York team, the Riverdale Panthers.

Kalijah, now 20 years old, played in Eastern New York’s Olympic Development Program (ODP) in 2009 and 2010, then with Region 1 ODP in 2010 and 2011.

With 123,843 youth soccer players––68,587 boys and 55,256 girls––and more than 25,000 volunteers, the non-profit Eastern New York Youth Soccer Association (ENYYSA) stretches from Montauk Point, Long Island to the Canadian border. Members are affiliated with 11 leagues throughout the association, which covers the entire state of New York east of Route 81. ENYYSA exists to promote and enhance the game of soccer for children and teenagers between the ages of 5 and 19 years old, and to encourage the healthy development of youth players, coaches, referees and administrators. All levels of soccer are offered––from intramural, travel team and premier players as well as Special Children. No child who wants to play soccer is turned away. ENYYSA is a proud member of the United States Soccer Federation and United States Youth Soccer Association. For more information, please log on to http://www.enysoccer.com/, which receives nearly 300,000 hits annually from the growing soccer community.